Duterte shelves P50B prison in Nueva Ecija: Malayo na, mahal pa!

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said the government has shelved plans to construct a P50-billion mega prison facility in Laur, Nueva Ecija.

“The administration has decided to scrap it because of the high cost,” he disclosed.

The Secretary added the project was shelved “because of the inconveniences that will be experienced by the relatives of the detainees who will visit them all the way from Visayas and Mindanao.”

The Secretary said the government would instead erect new buildings in existing penal colonies including the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa City, Correctional Institute for Women (CIW) in Mandaluyong City, and those in Occidental Mindoro, Palawan, Leyte, Zamboanga City, and Davao.

He added a prison colony would also be established in Northern Luzon.

Aguirre noted that Congress already gave the Department of Justice (DOJ) an additional P2.2 billion for its budget in 2018 for the construction of the additional buildings.

Inmates from the NBP and CIW were intended to be transferred to the scrapped Laur mega prison which was meant to house 26,000 inmates.